AFTER ZHIRINOVSKY- PART FIVE: TIPPING THE SCALES
CNN interview with Dick Gephardt, Former House Majority Leader
July 26, 2010
CNN: Congressman, the announcement that President George W. Bush was suspending his campaign after a dismal third place finish in New Hampshire was a political bombshell that shook Washington to its core, but it also effectively forced the Democratic Party to radically shift its approach to the 2004 election. You famously said that it was a mistake to try and paint every Republican as a someone who would continue the failed Bush policies of the previous four years. Kerry, ironically, doubled down and tried to make the 2004 election entirely about George W. Bush.
Gephardt: There have been many critics who have pointed out the mistakes made by the Kerry campaign. I don’t need to revisit all of them.
CNN: But Bush’s withdrawal had an unexpected effect on his reputation.
Gephardt: Yes. Ironically, it appeared that President Bush, unburdened by the pressures of the campaign, could return to doing what he did best: being a generally affable and likeable guy. His withdrawal was initially seen as a sign of weakness but before long it was seen as the ultimate show of sacrifice. Bush was willing to sacrifice his legacy for the benefit of the party and of the nation and to make peace with his onetime rival, John Engler. He knew that Engler was the only man who could beat Kerry and he knew that Tancredo or Brownback as the nominee would be a disaster. Despite his personal feud with Engler he still sucked it up and endorsed him.
CNN: Initially Bush seemed to be avoiding Engler-
Gephardt: Engler wanted to keep Bush at arms length because his poll numbers were hovering around 15% after New Hampshire. But by the time the convention rolled around Bush had done the unthinkable: he had gotten those numbers back in the mid 40s.
CNN: Yet Kerry still pushed the narrative that a vote for Engler was a vote for Bush.
Gephardt: Don’t get me wrong, people started to like President Bush because he wasn’t going to be reelected and as a result he started acting less like a politician and more like a person. His gaffes were monumental, but suddenly they became endearing. And Engler, although he embraced Bush at the convention, still pushed his own narrative that an Engler administration would look a lot different from a Bush administration. That was an easy sell since it was clear that the two never really saw eye to eye. But with all that being said, the basic message remained the same. Nobody though George Bush was a competent president. He was seen as way in over his head. Engler was always seen as his own man and even his staunchest critics saw that he was a seasoned and experienced politician.
CNN: So what could John Kerry have done differently?
Gephardt: (long pause) Well, there were two things I told him at the Democratic convention, two pieces of advice that he ultimately disregarded.
CNN: What were they?
Gephardt: First I said; don’t make this about George Bush per se. The Republicans know he was a disaster, but they think he was a disaster because he was green around the ears. Make it about his adherence to failed policies. If you think George Bush was the problem you probably would be OK with John Engler.
CNN: What was the second piece of advice?
Gephardt: Under no circumstances should you underestimate the UIS.
Excerpts from the book “The Dragon’s Last Stand: A Biography of Former Vice President Rick Lazio ” by Frank Ryan.
Published by Random House © 2009
CHAPTER TWENTY
With the announcement that President Bush was suspending his campaign after an anemic third place finish in New Hampshire, a week after finishing fifth in Iowa, Vice President Rick Lazio immediately began to entertain calls for his entry into the Presidential race…despite arguments from many Republican insiders that the race was out of his reach.
“Rick Lazio had one shot to win the Republican nomination and that was running directly against President Bush in Iowa,” Gale Norton said. “By waiting until President Bush dropped out he ended up looking like an opportunist.”
Most election watchers felt there was almost no way Lazio could win the race. Even Lazio seemed to recognize this as he privately told aids that his ultimate strategy was to win in Florida and muddle the field so that the winner would be selected at the convention. This scenario terrified many Republicans.
“Lazio had a very narrow window to the nomination,” Norton added, “but if he failed, which he almost certainly would, he would almost certainly throw the nomination to either Tancredo or Brownback.”
Sam Brownback and John Engler were neck and neck in South Carolina, while Engler held a small lead over Tancredo in Florida. A pair of wins for Engler would end the insurgent campaigns of Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback, and Ron Paul. But Lazio’s late entry would almost certainly derail the best laid plans of the Republican Party. When word reached President Bush he contacted Lazio to ask him to reconsider.
“The relationship between President Bush and Lazio had deteriorated to such a point that the two didn’t speak to each other at all,” Norton added. “As a result President Bush had little sway over the Vice President.”
But as Lazio began to kick start his late entry into the 2004 Presidential nomination a curious scandal erupted, one that would sink Lazio’s presidential ambitions before it could even get off the ground.
UIS Presidential Candidate Vladimir Putin in an interview with the BBC on February 2, 2017.
Discussing the 2004 US Presidential Election.
BBC: Mr. Putin, there seemed to be a relentless series of attacks on Vice President Rick Lazio after his announcement that he was forming an exploratory committee in 2004-
Putin: And what does this have to do with the UIS?
BBC: Well, Mr. Lazio’s email account was hacked and some embarrassing emails were disclosed to Russian media sources.
Putin: Perhaps you should ask Mr. Zavadiya how he got those emails.
BBC: Well it was no secret that Lazio was the last man the Kremlin wanted to see in the White House.
Putin: From how the election went it appears he was also the last man Americans wanted to see in the White House.
BBC: Mr. Putin, let’s just cut the charade. What roll did the UIS have in hacking Vice President Lazio’s email account and why did RT elect to publish these emails?
Putin: First of all, the Vice President of the United States was using an AOL email account. It is a wonder it took so long for his email account to have been hacked. Second, this man was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers in Chechnya by his reckless actions as a congressman. He made arrangements for American weapons to fall in the hands of Islamic terrorists. Is it any surprise that a man so evil, a man with such little foresight, could be trusted to do the right thing? This was very newsworthy in Russia, and it should have been newsworthy in the United States. But the American media elected to ignore the contents of the emails and instead focus on the UIS, because it is easier to blame the Russians than actually look at the facts.
BBC: So the UIS hacked his email?
Putin: I don’t know who hacked his email, but if I were president of Russia I can assure you I would have had the KGB watching that madman carefully.
Excerpts from the book “What Went Wrong: Inside the Bush White House"
By Paul O’Neill
Published by Benton Press © 2006
CHAPTER 10: THE
George Bush said nothing as he watched the Fox News report on Vice President Lazio’s email scandal. There was plenty of dirt. Lazio had taken to calling President Bush “dumb as fuck” in several occasions as well as calling John Engler, the presumptive Republican nominee, a “fat fuck.” The coarse language was coupled with numerous misspellings, which led some to disparagingly call him “Typo Lazio”. But perhaps most damaging was the ambition. Vice President Lazio sent one email to a friend in mid-September of 2001 in which he openly predicted Bush’s resignation. He almost seemed to be gloating at the prospect of becoming president. President Bush then turned towards me.
“This…this is troubling,” he said as he muted the TV. “But…how did they get the emails?”
I already knew the answer. In the United States we all saw a Lazio campaign as a lost cause…but in the UIS it was seen as something else. Rick Lazio was seen as a war criminal by most Russians and the hatred the UIS and President Lebed held towards Lazio was palatable. Rick Lazio has less than a 2% chance of becoming President of the United States, but to the UIS, those odds were unacceptable. So they made sure that his campaign was stillborn…and in the process they handed John Engler the nomination. President Bush looked worried and deeply troubled, but I knew it had nothing to do with being insulted by Rick Lazio in a private email. President Bush had a thick hide. No, he was seeing the same thing I saw: the former Soviet Union had just meddled in a U.S. election. Whatever happened from this point on, it was going to be because the Union of Independent States had tipped the scales against Rick Lazio.
